


if i never

by WritingOnTheWalls



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Character Study?, Do you ever cry because Ben reminds Sammy of Jack (because I do, Gambling, If you wouldn't die for Sammy Stevens you are wrong, It's 3am hello, Jack's favourite colour is yellow, Let Sammy be HAPPY you COWARDS (loljkplsdon't), M/M, Really Bad Metaphors, So much angst, Spoilers up to KFAM88, Stream of Consciousness, UMidkWHATTHISIS, What's a dialogue?, and so does Sammy), gratuitous angst, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 10:39:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19332898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingOnTheWalls/pseuds/WritingOnTheWalls
Summary: It's never fun, but you keep playing anyway.





	if i never

There are no words to describe the nothing that Jack leaves behind, so he doesn’t try. He’s bet his whole life on this, on them, and now all he has is an empty bed with stupid dirty sheets in a stupid room with stupid ugly sunshine-yellow walls in a stupid apartment in a stupid neighbourhood that he doesn’t even like and it hurts.  
It hurts.  
Jack had always cleaned the sheets, and Jack had picked the colour of the walls, and Jack had insisted they move into this nothing city, and thrown everything away to chase a dream that wasn’t worth having in the first place and now Jack is gone and there’s nothing without Jack and it hurts, it hurts, ithurtsithurts.  
It hurts worse than when his Mom died, and his Dad left, and when Lily didn’t want them, and he thought he knew what hurt was but apparently not because this is broken ankles and skinned knees and death and heart break and tragedy and failure and everything else he’s ever cried and screamed about all meshed into one pile of grief and it fucking hurts. Like nothing else.

He’d always been a betting man, because you can’t win if you never play the game. He’s just found out the hard way that there are worse things to lose than money or Pokemon Cards.  
Like everything. (It’s so easy to lose everything.)

* * *

The thing about gambling, the thing they never tell you, is that nobody wins.

You find yourself hooked-on to the feeling. The feeling of laughter and love and anything. (Because he’s always been numb, but for the first time this is something else.) The small shocks of something that feel like winning. It fools everybody in compliance, until you’re too far gone to snap yourself out of it.  
You keep trying, you keep giving. Small parts of yourself at first. Then a little more. Until there’s nothing left to give and still you give. You hurt, and you cry and you lose, you lose, you lose.  
You bet it all on red, or black or seven or the beautiful boy with the beautiful eyes and the beautiful heart and he fucking leaves and it’s fucking ugly and you break and you lose everything (everything.)

(You lose, you lose, you lose. And then all that’s left is The Void where Jack used to be.)  
But you keep playing anyway.  
It’s never been fun, but you keep playing anyway.

* * *

He never expected Ben. He didn’t want to hope that he could ever feel anything for anybody again. That feels like a betrayal. Like he shouldn’t be happy without being in love – because isn’t love everything? Jack had told him that too (but he was a liar so what did it matter. He left.)  
But Ben had somehow quietly inserted himself into his life, eclipsing everything else for the second time in his life, and wasn’t that worth betting on? The smiles were almost identical, and the passion unlike anything he’d ever seen in anybody besides the two of them. They even both had those stupid little notebooks, and the penchant for making up silly little expressions.

When Jack and Ben become j _ackandben_ in his brain, and blue eyes meld into dark features, and the memory of their laughter echoes in the same parts of his brain, he shakes and weeps on his bedroom floor, his hand around his cock and hollow laughter filling his empty room. The walls aren’t yellow, and the sheets are dirty and all he has is Ben.  
That should be enough.  
(It’s not enough.)  
But he’s confused. Ben loves him, but he doesn’t _love_ him, nobody loves him. That’s better than he deserves.  
Winning something should be better than winning nothing, but still. He loses again.  
(When he passes out, he dreams of Ben’s lips, and Ben’s arms and Ben’s shoes and BenBenBen and that hurts even more.)

* * *

He bet on the wrong person.

He shouldn’t have even started playing. He should’ve never laughed at their stupid in-jokes, or joined in on teasing Lily, or taken note of the butterflies in his stomach. He shouldn’t have kissed back in the carpark, he shouldn’t have let him borrow that book. He shouldn’t have read the stupid letter in the journal, he shouldn’t have suggested the Disney trip. He shouldn’t have baked that stupid vegan cake, or accepted the ring, or planned out their futures (at least not together.)  
Was there even a right person? Was the only way you win to walk away before ever even taking a chance? To hold all your chips tight in your hand, and never let them leave your sweaty grasp? To never meekly, shyly, hand one over to somebody else in a gesture akin to trust?  
Was he not supposed to let himself fall for Jack? To just pass over the happiness he had felt so completely because of the inevitable erasure of everything that mattered? Wasn’t it worth it? (It was supposed to be worth it.)  
Jack is the best game he’s ever played. The only one worth playing. But even the best games have losers.

* * *

He hadn’t learned.  
He’d thrown himself into The Void.  
He’d taken a chance on a possibility, but the game didn’t want to let him play.  
Not this time.  
And maybe, finally, he’d won.

**Author's Note:**

> I have never written anything about Sammy, or in this fandom...or in years, but 3am Monday morning seems like a good time to start, right? Thanks for reading!


End file.
